


I Dare You

by deciding



Series: Heavy Ceiling [2]
Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Gen, Non-Canon Relationship, Post-2x13, Pre-2x18, SweetE, Swethel, Violent Explosions of the STEM variety, having fun isn't hard when you've got a library card
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-09
Updated: 2019-03-20
Packaged: 2019-05-04 09:12:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,649
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14589744
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deciding/pseuds/deciding
Summary: Sweet Pea never thought about pursuing any kind of relationship, romantic or otherwise, outside the gang he belonged to until he and his disenfranchised friends made their debut at Riverdale High.





	1. Sundays

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This serves as a follow-up to the SweetBee friendship fic, [_Know Who You Are_](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13621416/chapters/31275054). It is not an absolute must-read to understand this story, but it does provide context.
> 
> Trying something a little different this time: a mini fic with mini chapters.

Eyes wide and smiles bright – those were sure signs of being impressed. Those were the reactions that made sacrificing Sunday afternoons to tutor neighborhood kids at the local library worthwhile for Sweet Pea. It had taken a while to earn those reactions, too. For the first few weeks, it seemed to Sweet Pea the kids only listened to what he said because they knew of his reputation on the south side. After doing things Betty’s way and sticking to the script for a month, Sweet Pea finally got her to talk to Ms. Turner, the librarian in charge of the tutoring program, about a science demonstration relevant to the curriculum of his group. Betty had to be his go-between because it would be a cold day in hell before Ms. Turner would go for anything he suggested after she’d caught him with his hand up a girl’s skirt in the aisle with gardening books last summer. 

With Betty’s help, Ms. Turner reluctantly allowed the demonstration with a condition—it would have to be done outside. The weather had turned a corner in Riverdale and it was early spring, just chilly enough for light jackets and sweaters. Sweet Pea’s tutees stood around him in a circle on the front lawn of the library. All week long leading up to his demonstration, he’d troubleshooted the formula in the alley behind his grandmother’s corner store and apartment. Although the demonstration wasn’t very sophisticated and at a lower level than the seventh graders he tutored in terms of educational value, he still thought it was worth it to garner their reactions. The kids in his group were learning about plate tectonics and natural disasters caused by the movement of the earth’s crust. Sweet Pea believed he would be remiss if he didn’t present them with a demonstration of a volcano eruption using baking soda and vinegar. Violent explosions were his specialty, after all. 

Sweet Pea used strips of newspaper fashioned into papier-mâché and spray-painted it to make his volcano. He only had one shot to make it work on the day of the demonstration, so throughout the week he’d used empty soda bottles to get the ratio of baking soda to food-color-dyed vinegar correct. The eruption _had_ to be explosive. 

When some of the ‘lava’ shot up into the air like a projectile and garnered _ooh_ s and _ahh_ s from the students, Sweet Pea knew he’d succeeded. They were so much more excited and engaged than when he’d helped them define some basic geology terms for their homework and showed them a Pangea map. They liked being outside rather than in the stuffy conference room, too, even if there was still a slight chill in the air. Sweet Pea gave them five minutes to sit on the steps (the pavement was dry but the thawing grass they’d stood on for the demonstration was a little muddy) to discuss and write down their observations. A concise description of the demonstration was a perfect response to one of the questions of their weekend homework assignment—one he’d skipped going over with them in order to go outside. 

At minute three, the door opened from the inside and out scurried a figure who prompted Sweet Pea to lock his knees and stand up straight. Ethel Muggs glanced at the students sitting on the stairs with their notebooks in their laps, then took the steps two by two and spoke once she was halfway to Sweet Pea. 

“Hey, Martin—” 

Like a school of fish, Sweet Pea’s group gasped in unison as if another volcano had erupted. Their commentary came quickly. 

“Wait, is that your _real_ name?”

“Ooh, she called you Martin!” 

“You really gonna let her call you that?” 

“Hey!” Sweet Pea’s voice cut through the giggles and taunts of the middle schoolers. “Cut it out!” 

Sweet Pea’s role in the Junior Serpent League might have fallen to rank and file since Jughead rebranded it as the Swords and Serpents Club to maintain presence within the walls of Riverdale High, but to the young minds of the south side, Sweet Pea’s influence and reputation still preceded him. The chatter fell to silence as soon as he told the preteens to zip it, their once excited faces turned fearful. By the look of horror on Ethel’s face—the pupils of her hazel eyes dilated—Sweet Pea knew she thought she’d crossed a line. 

Ethel was the only person in front of the library who Sweet Pea didn’t want to fear his wrath. His name was Martin. _Marty_ for short. It wasn’t the best name or the worst—it was just okay. He thought it suited him. He’d been known that way from birth until he showed interest in the Serpents, when the leadership core thought they’d go _tongue-in-cheek_ and call him what his grandmother called him endearingly: Sweet Pea. The name stuck and he had no choice but to get used to it. 

But if the girl he’d had a crush on pretty much since the moment he stepped foot inside Riverdale High wanted to call him Martin or Sweet Pea or _whatever_ , he didn’t care. 

Sweet Pea and Ethel had spoken to each other sparingly since they began tutoring together on Sundays – casual hellos and goodbyes, and nods of acknowledgement in the hallways at school, but nothing to write home about. On Sundays, Ethel had a calmness in her voice when she explained math or talked to Betty, and it put Sweet Pea’s stomach into knots. He thought Ethel was extremely intelligent as well as interesting—definitely more than met the eye. Definitely so much more than someone who could be pigeonholed as ‘the nice girl’ and nothing more. Sweet Pea feared she merely saw him in a pigeonhole, as the gang kid making reform too little and too late. It was daunting for him. 

Sweet Pea had made his way around the block. He’d been with a lot of girls. He’d once slept with a girl _before_ he learned her name thirty minutes later. But he’d never had a girlfriend. He’d never even taken anyone out on a proper date before. He’d never had a crush on anyone as bad as his crush on Ethel. He hadn’t thought the desire to make a real connection was for kids like him. He’d never thought about pursuing any kind of relationship, romantic or otherwise, outside the gang he belonged to until he and his disenfranchised friends made their debut at Riverdale High. 

So when Sweet Pea voiced his thoughts on what Ethel called him, his cheeks burned, and he addressed the seventh grade troublemakers in his tutoring group, but his eyes remained locked with Ethel’s. 

“That’s okay,” Sweet Pea said gently. “She can call me ‘Martin’ if she wants to.” 

The _ooh_ s and _ahh_ s from the volcano demo returned. Sweet Pea wasn’t sure if what he’d said was subtle or discrete. Had he just publicly announced his crush on Ethel to a group of seventh graders _and_ to Ethel? Would they be able to decipher the twisted pretzel that was his stomach based on those words? 

A blush nearly as crimson as her signature red bow quickly crept into Ethel’s cheeks to match Sweet Pea’s, but Sweet Pea didn’t know if it was because of what he’d said or because she’d been called out by middle schoolers. 

When Ethel spoke directly to Sweet Pea, she stuttered on her apology. “S–sorry.” 

She focused her gaze on the Mary Janes that adorned her feet, head bowed and hands laced together. 

“Hey.” Sweet Pea took a step toward Ethel and waved his hand in front of her, tentatively and awkwardly, before he pulled it back and shoved it into his pocket, the rings on his fingers getting caught on the worn edges of the stitching. “I don’t mind.” 

Ethel exhaled and tucked a stray curl of her hair under the ribbon behind her ear. “Oh…okay. Thanks.” 

Sweet Pea was tempted to lift her chin and look her in the eye for her to know he genuinely meant what he’d said. He didn’t think she had anything to thank him for, especially not when it came to calling him by his name. But he wasn’t so bold when it came to her—and his grandmother had taught him better than to go around touching people without their permission—so he kept his hands to himself. Their exchange had been uncomfortable enough and Ethel had yet to reveal why she’d sought him out. 

“Right. So, uh…did you need something?” Sweet Pea winced at his own question and hoped he didn’t sound too much like a dick, like there was an implication Ethel had bothered him. 

“Oh! Right!” Ethel snapped her fingers and pointed at Sweet Pea, though her eyes never fully met his. “Betty asked me to tell you that Ms. Turner wants you guys back inside.” 

If Sweet Pea knew his new friend Betty, then he knew it was just like her to meddle in such a way. It was even a surprise she’d taken so long to push her influence. That was Betty—when she took an interest, she was all in. It was all her fault that Sweet Pea had ended up on the wrestling team and a Sunday afternoon tutor; that was his story and he was sticking with it. Betty was the only one who knew about Sweet Pea’s crush on Ethel—she was the only one smart enough to figure it out—so she was the only one who kept encouraging it. Since Betty and Jughead had gotten back together, she’d even offered to make it a double date, if Sweet Pea ever got around to asking Ethel out, and if Ethel agreed. 

The jig was up, then. If Betty used her leadership at the library to forcibly get Sweet Pea and Ethel to talk to each other, Sweet Pea believed it was her way of sending him a subliminal message. It wouldn’t be long until Betty couldn’t take it anymore and full-on interfered. Sweet Pea was grateful she’d kept his secret since she figured it out, but whether or not he could trust her completely remained to be seen. It would surprise Sweet Pea more if Betty _didn’t_ reveal all to Jughead rather than if she did. Sweet Pea wouldn’t hold his breath if in the next few weeks Jughead was in the know and if Betty coerced her boyfriend into using their combined sleuthing skills for the purpose of proxying as Sweet Pea’s personal stand-ins for Cupid. One way or another, Jughead would eventually find out if a double date were to happen. 

“Okay, thanks.” Sweet Pea nodded at Ethel. _Message received._ “I’ll round them up.” 

After receiving his acknowledgement, Ethel disappeared beyond the double doors of the library’s entrance without another peep. Sweet Pea instructed his group to cross their _t_ ’s and dot their _i_ ’s because it was time to go back inside. 

One of his students got Sweet Pea’s attention before he could hold the door open for everyone. 

“Does this mean we can call you Martin from now on?” 

The question came from the student who’d laughed the loudest and made the most pointed remark when Ethel spilled the beans on Sweet Pea’s real name. So Sweet Pea shook his head. Sure, he had a soft spot for the neighborhood kids, but he still had a reputation to uphold. 

“No, Eli,” Sweet Pea said firmly and added a scowl for good measure. “You’ll call me ‘Sweet Pea’ or you won’t address me at all.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know this is a very niche head canon pairing that only a handful of people are interested in reading about. So if you made it here, thank you for reading! I’d love for you to share your thoughts with me. Any and all feedback is always appreciated. <3
> 
> [Extended Chapter Notes](http://jerepars.tumblr.com/post/173729539825/i-dare-you-extended-chapter-notes) are on tumblr, where I’m [@jerepars](http://jerepars.tumblr.com).


	2. Invalid Litter Dept.

Fresh from the alley behind the library where the dumpster was located, after throwing away the spoiled remains of his volcano demo, Sweet Pea walked across the library’s front lawn. It was still brown and wet under his boots from snow that had only finished melting completely a few days prior.

“Sweet Pea, come sit with us!”

Snapping to attention, his gaze moved to the bench table under one of the maple trees. Tutoring was done for the day. A handful of seventh graders sat huddled around the table and math tutor extraordinaire Ethel sat in the middle.

It was Emily, one of the students who needed help most with her grade in English, who’d called for Sweet Pea to join them. Sweet Pea had planned to text Fangs to finalize their plans for the evening after getting rid of the volcano, but with all eyes on him, turning away didn’t really seem like an option. Besides, since Sweet Pea had joined the ranks of Sunday tutors, he’d found out there were some kids who usually walked home on their own at the conclusion of the afternoon. With the Ghoulies and gun-toting maniac northsiders like Archie Andrews prowling around the south side, Sweet Pea had made the decision to walk home every kid who didn’t have a parent pick them up regularly. He’d have to wait for the keen students who liked to help Betty clean up anyway.

Despite the expectant eyes waiting on him, Sweet Pea maintained his normal pace, never slowing down or speeding up, until he slumped over the the edge of one side of the bench.

“What’s going on over here?” he asked.

“We’re playing the daring game!” Ainsley, Emily’s best friend, said excitedly. “Do you want to play with us?”

He eyed the two seventh graders curiously, though Emily wouldn’t meet his gaze. No doubt her dare had been to invite him over. Middle schoolers thought they were pretty slick, but he’d heard through the grapevine (via loudmouth Eli, who else?) that Emily had a crush on Sweet Pea. It was fine—and Sweet Pea thought harmless—because he remembered what it was like to have a crush at twelve years old. Hell, his hopeless crush on Ethel made him feel like he was about twelve years old, too.

“The daring game?” Sweet Pea repeated. “Don’t you mean truth or dare?”

“No,” Ainsley responded with evident disappointment in her voice. “Ethel thinks we’re all going to be mad at each other if we play that version. So only dares.”

Ethel had been to enough parties to know that in Riverdale, where concealed truths could cause the movement of the tectonic plates, any rendition of a game of truth or dare meant trouble. The round of _Sinners and Saints_ at Jughead’s birthday had ended up not just with the birthday boy getting punched in the face, but it had reminded her of her own sins and feelings she still wasn’t sure how to deal with.

She smiled shyly at Sweet Pea, cheeks blushing to nearly the same color as the bow in her hair. Though she offered no further explanation, he backed her up immediately anyway. “I think Ethel is right.”

“So do you want to play or not?” Ainsley asked petulantly. “It can be your turn next. This is, like, the only thing making time go faster until we can finally go home.”

Sweet Pea half scoffed and half chuckled under his breath at her impatience but maintained a serious face when he responded, “I appreciate the offer, Ains, but maybe I’ll go next time. You know what I think? You should all go help Betty, speed things along, so we can all go home.”

Emily didn’t even wait for Ainsley to respond before she stood and tugged on her best friend’s sleeve. “Let’s go.”

Ainsley’s scoff was audible as she rolled her eyes. She signaled for the rest of the group at the table to join them. “ _Fine_.”

As they took off, Sweet Pea shook his head and made a mental note to tell Toni about her. Ainsley reminded him a lot of Toni – the blunt nature and swagger, and especially the sassiness. Sweet Pea thought those were the best kinds of friends to have, the ones who were willing to go to bat and get in someone else’s face for their friends. It was the kind of friend he tried to be.

“You didn’t even have to tell them how high,” Ethel observed, “they just jumped.”

A chuckle fell from Sweet Pea’s lips as he slid over so he was seated right across from Ethel. “That’s how you know you’ve made it, when you can mystify seventh graders.”

“I wouldn’t know.” Ethel shrugged. “I’ve never mystified anyone. Well, maybe my cat, Mr. Snuffleupagus.”

Sweet Pea wanted to say he was mystified by her, because he was so taken by her, and completely confused and uncertain of what the right move to make was because of his crush. But well aware it was the very first time they’d ever been alone together, he kept his mouth shut on the matter. He thought her addition, too, about her cat, was an endearing tidbit. He wasn’t sure what was more adorable: the image of her talking to a cat and the feline giving her quizzical, judgemental looks in the way cats always did, or, the fact that she’d named her cat after Big Bird’s best friend.

Ethel was as aware about being alone with Sweet Pea as he was and it made her nervous. Not because she was scared of Sweet Pea, but rather, because of how she’d screwed up and embarrassed him in front of his tutoring group. There was no way to deflect since it was just the two of them. She hesitated before she spoke again.

“Listen, S-sweet Pea,” Ethel’s voice still stammered over his name, tentative and unsure about her approach, “I really am sorry about earlier. We’ve been tutoring together for a month. I could’ve asked you about your name weeks ago. I should’ve made a better effort to…to get to know you rather than figuring it all out in front of seventh graders. They can be vicious.”

“I hope you’re not beating yourself up over it.” Sweet Pea frowned. “I told you, I don’t mind.”

“I should explain why—”

“You don’t have to,” Sweet Pea offered swiftly.

“No, please,” Ethel shook her head, obviously worked up about something that went beyond Sweet Pea’s knowledge of her, “let me explain.”

“Well…okay.” Sweet Pea encouraged her to go on. “Only if you want to.”

There was a lull while Ethel wrung her hands together on top of the bench. She pulled herself together, moving her shoulders back and taking a few consecutive deep breaths.

She began with a quick sentence, voice frail and timid when she finally gathered her wits. “People haven’t always been nice to me.”

That part Sweet Pea knew. Since starting at Riverdale High, he’d seen Ethel most often in the cafeteria eating alone or walking through the halls with her back hunched over, books to her chest protectively, like she was trying to fold in on herself. She was like what Jughead made Sweet Pea feel like sometimes: an alternative friend—someone to hang around with only when it was convenient or necessary. Sometimes Chuck Clayton and his cronies sat at Ethel’s table by the window. But it was just for show, to remind the student body every so often that they were reformed. Even Betty—who’d become a friend of Sweet Pea’s—was friendly to Ethel because she could be relied upon for _The Blue & Gold_ and Sunday tutoring. They were friendly but they weren’t exactly friends.

Sweet Pea could only imagine there’d been a time when things had been worse for Ethel. In his own experience, bullies could smell blood in the water and knew who was most vulnerable to their torture. Long before the Serpents, before becoming best friends with Toni and Fangs, Sweet Pea had been made fun of at age seven for being spacey, never knowing the answers to any of the teacher’s questions, always responding with no more than shrugged shoulders. It was the year his father died and his mother went to jail. He missed so much school that year, and wasn’t mentally present even when he was there, so he had to repeat the second grade. It set him up to get picked on even more. It was during his second go-around in the second grade when he met Fangs (the first person who ever stood up for him) and asked him if he knew what a Serpent was, when Sweet Pea learned to get mean. To get even.

But Ethel? Sweet Pea couldn’t find any evidence to categorize her as a sub-defective, why she would have been targeted by bullies. She was tall and beautiful and well-dressed and probably the smartest person in the 10th grade—except for that Dilton kid he’d nearly knocked out for trash talking the Serpents and Betty’s association with them.

“I mean, it’s gotten better, but people still aren’t nice, not always. There are times when I’m reminded of the worst days of middle school. They used to call me ‘Big Ethel’ or ‘Big E’,” Ethel went on. “There were even kids who tried to pass it off like they were saying _Biggie_ —you know, like the Notorious B.I.G., the rapper—as if they were saying it in an old school cool way. But I knew what they meant. And I fucking hated it.”

Ethel’s fists were clenched after her recount of the name-calling she’d experienced. Sweet Pea had never heard her get so angry or use such an expletive before. It upset Sweet Pea, though it didn’t surprise him, to know how low the north side elite would stoop; it wasn’t enough for them to undercut the entire south side community—they had to mentally scar one of their own when she didn’t conform to their rigid standards.

On the other hand, it pleased Sweet Pea to hear Ethel’s reaction, to know there were sparks that could be lit in her. It was no secret Sweet Pea was a hothead. Each time he was told it was the system that was broken and it wasn’t personal, he was set on a rampage. It was _always_ personal for him. He saw an attack on anyone in his community as an attack on all of them. His reserve of rage was built up from years of feeling like he’d gotten the short end of the stick in every significant way of his miserable young life. That feeling was one that had attracted him to Ethel from the beginning. Out of observation of her behavior and body language, even though she’d grown up on the right side of town, Sweet Pea knew she’d been wronged for reasons he couldn’t understand.

“I’m so sorry that happened to you, Ethel.” Sweet Pea looked her in the eye with full respect for her name.

Neither his nickname nor his real name bothered Sweet Pea, because neither had been used as verbal weapons to hurt him. It made sense why Ethel had hesitated to call him Sweet Pea, given the cruel intentions behind the nicknames middle school bullies had bestowed upon her.

“I think that’s why I won’t let the kids play truth or dare, why I keep insisting on dares only, even though they’ve asked me after tutoring every week since this semester started.” Ethel let go of her posture and slumped her shoulders. “Because I know firsthand how the truth gets twisted and used to hurt people. I know truths that could probably destroy half the school, things I’ve found out when I’ve been ignored like fraying wallpaper in the background. I have the power to hurt people and it’s just stowed away. I keep everything bottled up inside me, because I don’t want to be like them, but it scares me to think I could snap and completely obliterate someone, or that I already have.”

“You don’t owe me an explanation for taking the high road, Ethel. If I had dirt on people from your side of town, and they did to me what they did to you, I would sell them out in a heartbeat. And you should know the people who thought it was okay to treat you like that,” Sweet Pea said with his tone rising, “those people like…like Chuck Clayton…they don’t even deserve to breathe the same air as you.”

“That’s nice of you to say.” Ethel stiffened at the mention of the former football star. “But Chuck? He’s not…I don’t have a beef with him. If anything I feel guilty about the way things went down with Chuck.”

“ _Guilty_?” Sweet Pea practically seethed on the word. “After what he and his friends did with that book of deeds? We heard about that all the way at Southside High. He should consider himself lucky Betty didn’t finish the job boiling him alive. How can you possibly feel guilty?”

Ethel squirmed uncomfortably at the topic of one of her most recent regrets. “Sweet Pea, maybe you heard about what Betty did, but you have no idea what my role in the whole thing was.”

“What do you mean?”

Ethel was right. Sweet Pea didn’t know. Had she participated in the justice Betty dished out in rage? Truthfully, to Sweet Pea, it was one of the selling points of a friendship with Betty, knowing a part of her had a penchant for subverted pulses and the guillotine in her own mind.

“What Betty did to Chuck in the hot tub, that was at my house. I told Betty and Veronica they could use the backyard to do whatever they were going to do to Chuck, to shame him or embarrass him.” Ethel’s confession was barely above a whisper. “I didn’t know what they were going to do—and I didn’t care. I was so mad about the book, about being _in_ the stupid book. All I cared about was revenge.”

A shiver of delight went down Sweet Pea’s back. He knew Ethel wasn’t just the nice girl or the sweet girl, because no one was ever only one thing in summation. But to hear her speak of an underlying mean streak was a new and unexpected dimension of her personality he hadn’t expected, one he welcomed. She wasn’t just beauty and brains. She was dynamite.

“Do you know what I did when I saw what was happening?” Ethel looked up at Sweet Pea.

Sweet Pea shook his head. “What?”

“I smiled.” Ethel spoke like she’d fallen from grace, so fearful and guilty of her own actions. “I peeked in the backyard and saw it. I heard Chuck screaming. And I _smiled_ , then I closed the gate and carried on with the rest of my night like it was normal. I had the same smug smile on my face when Chuck and his friends got kicked off the football team, when they had to make their walk of shame down the hall. It felt damn good to put him in his place, to let him feel the heat both times. But that is so messed up, to let myself rationalize that was happened was okay because of what he did to me.”

Sweet Pea’s throat was dry and his head spun. He and Ethel barely knew each other but she confessed what she thought were her sins to him. She felt wretched for what she’d done but Sweet Pea was smitten, hypnotized by her confession. He wanted to hold her, praise her, for being every bit the kind of person he found desirable. She was the balance of opposites—scared but scary, innocent but not blameless, a finger on the pin of a grenade yet ready to rip it out. And she didn’t even have to try. She did it just by being herself.

“I…” Sweet Pea trailed off, still entranced by what she’d shared.

He always felt vulnerable around Ethel, always felt out of sorts because he liked her so much. But after revealing what she believed were misdeeds, Ethel was vulnerable, too. The opportunity to show some of his own cards on the table without the influence of anyone else presented itself to Sweet Pea.

“Ethel, I…” Sweet Pea stammered again but composed himself enough to get out a full sentence, “I think I’m ready to use my dare now.”

Ethel raised an eyebrow at the seemingly sudden change of topic. “Sweet Pea, you made the girls leave.”

“My dare is for you,” he said.

“Oh,” Ethel answered meekly, surprised. “Oh, okay.”

Sweet Pea moved to rest both of his palms face down on top of the table, his rings clanking against the wood. He exhaled and let his thoughts tumble out of his mouth before he had a chance to wise up and rethink what he was doing.

“I dare you to go out with me.”

His blurted words were met by wide eyes and a dumbfounded expression on Ethel’s face. Her silence amplified the birds chirping atop the maple trees, the caress of the wind, and the roar of a motorcycle in the front parking lot before the engine was cut. It dawned on Sweet Pea that Ethel’s silence was a sign he’d completely fucked up any slight chance he had, if he ever had one at all.

Ethel scrambled up from her seat to her feet and hurriedly gathered her belongings. She’d shared the part of her personality that was ugly, hateful, and vengeful, and for it Sweet Pea wanted a _date_? He wanted to see every black spot on her soul and see if any of their scars matched? Ethel’s amber eyes were clouded with terror and misunderstanding and she avoided looking at Sweet Pea as the hope faltered from his face.

“Ethel,” Sweet Pea dared utter her name when his hands shook in anger at himself. “Wait, I—”

She shook her head vigorously, still not meeting his eyes. The thud of combat boots against the pavement moved toward them and Ethel was determined to get out of there before a third party was privy to the awkward dare Sweet Pea had sent fizzing into the ether. “I…I have to go. I have to go.”

Stacking her math workbooks neatly into her arms cost Ethel a moment too long because as she turned to leave, the owner of the combat boots arrived. It was Jughead, still with his motorcycle helmet on, and a spare tucked under his leather-clad arm for Betty.

“Hey, guys,” he said casually and obliviously. “What’s going on?”

In her haste, Ethel ran into Jughead’s shoulder as she breezed past him, dashing off without apology or acknowledgement.

Jughead scowled as he put down Betty’s helmet on the benchtop, followed by his own. He reached into the secret pocket in the red lining of his leather jacket to fetch his beanie. He adjusted it on his head to his preference, so the pins lined up with the corner of his right eyebrow, before he took the seat opposite of Sweet Pea where Ethel had bolted from. Jughead rubbed his shoulder and moved it in place in circular motions a few times. Ethel hadn’t hurt him but she’d come at him with a lot of force in her hurry to flee the scene. He’d known Ethel since kindergarten and she was one of the few people apart from Betty and Archie who’d always been kind to him. Her behavior was erratic. She’d never knocked the air out of him and run away without explanation before.

“What was that all about?” he asked Sweet Pea.

Frustrated with the backfiring of his dare, Sweet Pea covered his face with his hands and groaned into his palms rather than answer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Extended Chapter Notes](http://jerepars.tumblr.com/post/174847385665/i-dare-you-extended-chapter-notes) are on tumblr, where I’m [@jerepars](http://jerepars.tumblr.com/).
> 
> Thank you for reading! I’d love to know what you think. Any and all feedback is always appreciated. <3


	3. Whenever Not Ever

The only good thing about Mondays at Riverdale High was the cafeteria’s pie selection for dessert: peach or apple cobbler. Sweet Pea always went with the latter, though even the peach was better than the stale pre-packaged muffins he’d been used to consuming since elementary school as part of the free lunch program on the south side. He’d already scarfed down his club sandwich and left the tomatoes (they made the bread soggy) on the side of his tray.

There was a quiz in his Chemistry class after lunch that he figured he ought to do at least 10 minutes of review for, given his decision to apply himself academically a hair more than in the past. Summer was around the corner and since he had a new gig of community outreach via science tutoring at the library, Sweet Pea thought he might have a shot at working the Rockland County Fair if he could be deemed responsible enough by his extracurriculars and average grades. A whole month of a summer job might even help him land a real minimum-wage part-time job. 

The prospect of being able to afford gas for his motorcycle, to go off and ride whenever things got to be too much, made Sweet Pea’s mouth water more than the sickly sweet pie that he cut into with his plastic fork. His small-time aspirations were interrupted by the thud of Fangs dropping down onto the cafeteria seat across from him. 

“Ugh. Finally. Can you believe how long it took me to get through that line?” Fangs groaned. “Ah, man, you’re like already done.”

Fangs had come from his art class, which was all the way on the other side of the school. Sweet Pea was usually the first Serpent to lunch anyway—his tall stature and perpetual scowl was intimidating to most, prompting them to get out of the way. Regardless of the quality of the food, having the majority of the northsiders scared of him was to his advantage since he ended up skipping breakfast more often than not. Betty Cooper was the only one who’d ever dared interrupt his walk to the cafeteria.

“Yeah, that sucks, man,” Sweet Pea answered.

“Anyway, where’s Toni?” Fangs asked.

“Beats me.” Sweet Pea shrugged. “Probably off chasing tail again.”

Fangs began his meal by taking the top pieces of bread off his sliced sandwich. Like Sweet Pea, he picked the tomatoes off of the meat but rather than pushing them to the side of his plate, he popped them in his mouth all at once and acknowledged Sweet Pea’s response with a silent nod as he chewed. Sweet Pea, Fangs, and Toni had always eaten lunch together, from elementary school to Southside High. Jughead joined them after his run-in with the Ghoulies. But at their new school, at the table tucked into the corner of the cafeteria beside the back wall, old tradition was broken. Since getting back together with Betty, Jughead was always absent unless they were having a Junior Serpent League meeting. And Toni? She was spending an increasing amount of time with Cheryl Blossom.

“You think she’s really serious about the _Cheryl Bombshell squad_?” Fangs wondered before he took the first bite of his sandwich.

The question was only slightly serious and mostly rhetorical. Fangs and Sweet Pea had both known Toni long enough to know that when someone piqued her interest, or when she had her heart set on something, she got tunnel vision and nothing moved her from what she was after. A few weeks ago, after Toni had shown up with a pep sign for Sweet Pea and Fangs’ wrestling meet, Sweet Pea had told her he was sure she would join the River Vixens in a minute after she’d sarcastically congratulated him for having school spirit. To Sweet Pea’s credit, Toni did jump at the opportunity, though he suspected it had much more to do with the cheerleading squad’s self-proclaimed HBIC than building up her extracurricular repertoire.

“Bro,” Sweet Pea leaned back against the wall behind him and looked up to the ceiling, “you and I are on the wrestling team. I think anything is possible these days.”

Fangs cleared his throat. “Um…can we help you?”

With a cocked eyebrow, Sweet Pea moved his gaze from the ceiling to Fangs in front of him, then to Fangs’ left. Sweet Pea moved away from the wall and sat up straighter. Ethel stood at the edge of the lunch table with her hands wrung together.

“Hi,” she said timidly. “I wanted to…I was hoping to talk to Sweet Pea.”

She had the same expression on her face as she did when she walked through the halls, miserable, trying to sink in on herself.

“Are you okay, Ethel?” Sweet Pea asked her directly, making eye contact.

“I’m fine.” Ethel nodded but her voice lacked the confidence of a truly affirmative answer. “I, uh, I need…I want to talk to you…preferably in private.”

Fangs, unaware of what had happened at the end of Sunday tutoring the day before, eyed her skeptically and pointed at the trays on the table. “We’re kind of in the middle of something here.”

Having the crush and soft spot for Ethel that he did, Sweet Pea countered his best friend’s statement. “Actually I’m almost do—”

“Oh, it’s okay!” Ethel blurted out in a rush, cutting Sweet Pea off. “You should finish your pie. Um, I’ll be in _The Blue & Gold_ office. Just meet me in there before lunch ends. If you can. Please. And I—I’m sorry to interrupt.”

Much like she had the day before, Ethel turned on her heel and scurried away before Sweet Pea had a chance to say he only needed a minute to pack up his stuff and throw away the remains of his lunch. It was for the best though, because they could both feel how awkward things were between them after Sweet Pea made his dare, and it was a long walk to the newspaper office.

“What the hell was that?” Fangs demanded once Ethel was out of the cafeteria. “Did I miss something?”

Sweet Pea shook his head and answered honestly, “Not yet.”

Fangs squinted at his best friend as he tried to decipher what such a vague, non-informative answer really meant. He smirked when he remembered Sweet Pea’s birthday and how Betty had promised Lola Nora that she was working on a ploy to fix him up with someone whose identity had yet to be revealed. Ethel Muggs fit the profile of someone both Betty and Sweet Pea spent time around without any of their other mutual friends. Actually, Fangs noted, Ethel was the _only_ one who fit that profile.

“Why do I sense she didn’t come over here to discuss tutoring in private?” Fangs asked suggestively.

Sweet Pea had already stood up and looped his backpack over one of his arms. He sighed as he picked up his lunch tray. “Sorry to bail on the rest of lunch with you. I want to know what she wants to talk about. Yesterday she ran off after I…you know what, I’ll tell you later once I know what’s up.”

“Go.” Fangs waved Sweet Pea off dismissively.

Sweet Pea gave Fangs a thankful pat on the shoulder with his free hand before dumping the contents of his lunch tray in the nearest trash can on his way out of the cafeteria. He shoved his hands in his pockets and took slow steps as he made his way down the hallway. So much for the Chemistry quiz he meant to cram for. No matter what happened when he talked to Ethel, no matter how short or long the interaction lasted, he doubted he’d still be able to focus on the quick review he’d planned to do.

With his mind full of the possibilities that could transpire during their conversation, Sweet Pea’s walk to the newspaper office ended all too soon. Nervous, he lingered under the threshold of the open door for several heartbeats before entering. Ethel was nervous, too. She paced back and forth with one arm crossed over her body and one supporting her chin in her hand. She didn’t notice Sweet Pea had arrived until he made his presence known.

“Careful,” he said. “If you wear through the floor Weatherbee will probably make you pay for it.”

Ethel stopped pacing and wrapped her arms around her middle, over her cardigan, instinctively and protectively. “Oh…hi.”

“Hi.”

Standing in front of one another, Ethel had to look up at Sweet Pea. It was a rare case; most of the boys in town were the same height or shorter than her. She didn’t notice he was as nervous as she was, or that it was her who made him nervous. She thought Sweet Pea was hard to read. It was a reminder of what she wanted to say to him over the course of their conversation.

Ethel gestured behind Sweet Pea. “Can you close the door?” 

There were few people from the north side of town who would willingly be alone with him and few he’d willingly be alone with. And just his luck, Ethel was one of them. He liked that no matter how unsure or apologetic she was around him, she’d never seemed _scared_ of him. Sweet Pea shut the door, filtering out the noise from the hallway. The sound that remained was the whirring of the radiator and their breathing.

“So…” In one smooth motion, Sweet Pea dropped his backpack onto one of the empty desks before approaching Ethel. “You summoned me?”

“F—first I want to say I’m sorry,” Ethan began with a stammer, “for how I reacted yesterday.”

Sweet Pea took one step closer to Ethel and answered honestly but gently, “I would’ve preferred you didn’t run away…and that this wouldn’t be so awkward now.”

The grimace Ethel gave in response was accompanied by the slumping of her shoulders. “In that case, I’m sorry for bolting from the cafeteria earlier, too.”

“Okay, you have got to stop apologizing to me for everything you do or say. Please, just be you and react as you see fit.” Sweet Pea shoved his hands back into his pockets but allowed his underbelly to be laid bare. “It’s okay to go with your gut even if it means making me feel bad or turning me down.”

In spite of her uneasiness, Ethel smiled at Sweet Pea’s kind sentiment. “Sweet Pea, the thing is…you caught me off guard. I’m used to being picked on, being the butt of jokes, not having any real friends I can count on. I’ve gotten used to the kids in this town buttering me up, being nice to me and making me feel like the olive branch is going to be extended to me, only to find out later it was all a big joke. I’ve grown uncomfortably numb to having to protect myself from disappointment. These days I eye every bit of kindness with a little bit of suspicion. So when you said you dared me to go out with you, after I’d admitted to things I’m not proud of, I thought…I thought…”

“You thought the worst,” Sweet Pea finished for her.

“Yeah,” Ethel nodded, her voice barely above a whisper. “You’d been so nice to me and I needed to get out of there before that interaction ended with you telling me that I’d be crazy to think you’d ever actually want to slum it with me, before I took another hit to my self esteem.”

“Oh, Ethel, I didn’t mean to—I would never—” A pang of guilt flashed across Sweet Pea’s eyes and thudded in his chest. Given his lack of experience with dating and asking girls out, he hadn’t thought about the effect of his exact phrasing. He’d only been intent on asking for a date before he chickened out and didn’t bring it up at all. “I hate that the way people have treated you makes you think you need to keep your guard up with me. I didn’t ask you out as a joke. I meant it.”

“You were being genuinely nice to me. And for the first time ever I wish I’d taken someone’s kindness for face value so that I would’ve said ‘yes’.”

“Really?” 

“Really. I wasn’t really listening to what you said to me, was I? You said the people who’ve screwed me over don’t deserve to breathe the same air as me and I brushed it off and lumped you in with people who’ve hurt me, people who’ve so easily thrown away my heart without hesitation. And that’s not fair to you, for me to judge you like that when I don’t really know you.” Ethel wrung her hands together as she so often did before admitting, “I think I’d like to though.”

“Are you sure?” Sweet Pea asked, protecting his own heart and stopping himself from getting his hopes up, afraid she’d only spoken out of guilt. After all, she’d told him she felt guilty over being a participant who’d brought Chuck Clayton down from his pedestal, whereas Sweet Pea thought the shaming in the court of public opinion was well deserved.

“If…if you’re still willing to be kind, if you’re willing to forgive my boneheadedness, then I would like to go on the date.” Ethel hurriedly added, “I mean, if that’s something you’d still want to do after all this.”

“Yes.”

“Great!” Ethel’s sad eyes lit up with relief, thankful to be able to have the chance to make up for unfairly judging Sweet Pea the day before. “So it’s a date then.”

Sweet Pea gave another simple answer. “Okay.”

“Um, how do you feel about this weekend? And do you have a car or do I need to ask my mom if I can borrow hers?” Ethel hit him with a bunch of questions at once. “How do you feel about Greendale? I was thinking there or maybe Centerville.”

“Wait, what? _Greendale_?” Sweet Pea emphasized the neighboring town’s name with disgust. “I hate that place more than the north side of Riverdale. No, I don’t want to drive out of town to a different shithole.”

“Oh…okay. So you mean…” Ethel swallowed the lump that had formed in her throat. “So then you want to go out _here_? In Riverdale?”

“That’s definitely what I meant.” Sweet Pea pointedly asked, “Do you not want to be seen with me?”

“No! No, I mean, no, I wouldn’t have a problem being seen with you,” Ethel blubbered quickly. “I just mean…I thought you…I never…”

Ethel’s words were a jumbled mess and she trailed off without completing a coherent sentence. She looked up at Sweet Pea, at the questioning look on his handsome face trying to understand what she was saying, and was overwhelmed by the feelings that made up her daydreams flooding her all at once. Ethel had to steady herself by grabbing onto the corner of the desk in front of her with one hand because she felt weak in the knees.

“Whoa.” Sweet Pea strode quickly to close the distance between them. He held his hands out, hovering in front of her for support in case she needed it. “Ethel, are you okay? What’s the matter?”

Ethel’s vision went cloudy as tears brimmed to the surface. Her palm hurt from gripping the desk so hard.

“You weren’t just being nice.” Ethel said. It was both a statement and a question full of hope. “I mean you were, but that’s not why you did it when you dared me to go out with you. You meant it.”

It wasn’t until the words were out of Ethel’s mouth that Sweet Pea understood how his tendency for hookups rather than real dating experience had made him so sensitivity deprived that it might’ve trounced his chance at a first date. He’d been so intent on getting the date proposal out in the open—he’d gotten so wrapped up in his attraction—that he didn’t spend any time on the details that apparently did matter. There’d been no flattery and no wooing. Who did he think he was anyway? He was a teen Serpent and a lowly one at that. He couldn’t expect to coast on the charm he didn’t have. The girl he liked didn’t realize how into her he was, didn’t know she made him nervous, didn’t know he was hoping for her to take a chance on him. She thought he was, of all things, _being nice_.

“I’m sorry if I didn’t make myself clear. That’s on me,” Sweet Pea apologized. “Of course I meant it. I wouldn’t have asked you otherwise. Because honestly I’m not that nice.”

Ethel took her hand from the desk and crossed it over her heart, genuinely shocked and relieved. “Wow.”

“I didn’t mean to upset you,” Sweet Pea told Ethel when he saw how glassy her eyes were.

Ethel shook her head. “Not upset. I’m…overwhelmed.”

Sweet Pea winced. “I did a terrible job asking you out, didn’t I?”

“I think that I’ve been a romantic for too long,” Ethel began to explain rather than answer directly. “In spite of everything I’ve dealt with, getting made fun of and bullied on a regular basis, I always told myself someday someone in this town would see me and not think that…that I’m a sub-defective or that I talk too much or that all the stuff I’m into is for loser kids. And being a hopeless romantic, maybe a little vain, I always hoped it would turn out to be someone who could sweep me off my feet. So I couldn’t have prepared myself for this, you know? For a rush of blood and my feelings set on fire. Not for the someday of my daydreams to be today or for someone to be you.”

Ethel’s words tugged at Sweet Pea’s heartstrings. He thought it was unfair that she should always be so down on her luck, that little things never went her way. It was why he knew she was his kind of person—disenfranchised, castaway, unloved and weeded out—someone who could relate to how he felt, stuck in a devil town. In both of their encounters the day before he’d used all his self control to keep from reaching out to her, denying them both for the sake of personal space when he really should have tried to make a connection. Sweet Pea didn’t allow himself to second-guess himself this time. He caught the sleeve of Ethel’s sweater and let his palm rest gently on her elbow.

“I see you,” he said simply. “And I don’t think you talk too much.”

Ethel had to wipe at her eyes before meeting Sweet Pea’s gaze again. She believed what he said, sweet and sincere. “I’m sorry I was so quick to judge. It’s just that you’re…you’re not at all what I expected, Martin. Sweet Pea. I mean, hot bad boy wants to take me out on a date? That doesn’t happen for people like me. I’m out of my league. Everyone’s going to say I’m punching way above my weight class, which is ironic, given the whole ‘Big E’ thing.”

“You should apologize less and tell people to go fuck themselves,” Sweet Pea advised her, passionately but calmly. “You should be way nicer to yourself, too.”

“You think so?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh, yeah?” The corners of Ethel’s mouth upturned and she used the awkwardness caused by the day before to tease him, “Is that a dare?”

Sweet Pea snickered and countered, “Will you do those things if it is?”

Ethel smiled meekly. “I’ll consider it.”

Sweet Pea grinned and took a step back from her. The tension between them had lifted but he was about to renew it immediately. He hoped it would sizzle. He took a deep breath and refrained from shoving his hands in his pockets.

“So, Ethel, not daring, just asking,” Sweet Pea clarified before finally vocalizing the right words, “will you go out with me on Friday night?”

Blushing and feeling see-through after a long winded conversation that had brought clarity, Ethel was full of nervous excitement but answered without hesitation, “Yes.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Back at it with my favorite head canon. Thank you for reading!
> 
> [Extended Chapter Notes](http://jerepars.tumblr.com/post/183592158195/i-dare-you-extended-chapter-notes) are on tumblr, where I’m [@jerepars](http://jerepars.tumblr.com/).


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